Here’s a direct copy and paste from the latest O2 e-mail newsletter:

So, no limits. Data usage to your hearts content. But only if you don’t use it too much.

Seriously, I don’t know how many times this keeps happening lately but people don’t seem to understand the problem. If you rely on seeing cars before dipping your headlights then you’ve already caused the problem. It’s simple to look for approaching lights ahead. It just takes a little observation.

It doesn’t really matter if the cars off a fair way in the distance. If you can see the cars headlights or tail lights, dip your feckin headlights. If you don’t do this, you are blinding the other driver and making things worse for everyone.

Whilst I’m on this one WAIT UNTIL YOU’RE PAST THE FECKIN CAR BEFORE PUTTING YOUR FULL BEAMS BACK ON… Arghhhhh. By putting them on again just ahead of passing the car or as you are passing – you’ve still blinded the person and what’s worse, not given them an option to vent their fury as you pass.

It’s easy – so why do so many people have such trouble with this. Well, it’s because they don’t spend half as much time actually paying attention as they should. Reactionary driving ISN’T GOOD ENOUGH. You should be proactive.

News: Mixed.

Audi V10 and Corvette: Great. The camera work in Top Gear is fantastic at times.

Star in car: OK.

6/10

Still looking for some spark to restore my faith.

Let me just make it clear though that bad Top Gear is still watchable. It’s still series linked on Sky and it would still be iPlayer’ed if the Satellite/HD box failed again.

But that’s about the limit of it. It’s completely lost sight of what made it great. The stunts used to be funny. They aren’t any more. The jokes used to be funny. They aren’t any more. The chemistry between the presenters used to appear genuine. It doesn’t any more.

Whether this is because I’ve seen it all before, I don’t know. I just can’t quite put my finger on it. Everything just seems that bit more contrived and scripted. I fully accept that it probably isn’t any more contrived or scripted than it has been right from the start but something in the chemistry of me watching the show has shifted. Old Top Gear on Dave still holds the attention more.

As near as I can work out, if Top Gear is going to return to something that I look forward to again, I think it has to stop trying so hard. Let the stunts speak for themselves. A Veyron racing a mile horizontally whilst a Eurofighter races a mile vertically is an epic spectacle no matter how it’s shot. An Apache flying around with an Exige screaming around under it is great to watch. Turning a Robin Reliant into a Rocket was truly spectacular. Deliberately reversing a lorry into a car and pretending it’s not entirely scripted is just utterly yawn educing.

It needs to forget the scripting, go on its trips and voyages, find the roads an scenery worth finding and show us the cars worth seeing and let the scripts write themselves. Why every voyage has to have a whole pathetic section where the presenters pretend to get lost or have technology go wrong or miss a train or just make a ferry is beyond me. Whether my take on what I want Top Gear to be would lead to exciting, watchable TV I don’t know but I’m fairly sure it would be better than what we currently have.

Top Gear evolved and made a name for itself again after it got boring simply watching review after review of Euro-boxes. It needs to evolve again if it is to remain watch-worthy.

Top Gear is at it’s best when it recognises great engineering, great scenery, great photography and great cars. Top Gear is at its worst when it tries to inject tension, scripted jokes and fake stunts. Sadly, it appears that the later are prevalent and the former, scant.

I don’t want Top Gear to disappear from Sunday nights. I want it to get good again and make a Sunday night. 6 more episodes to go in this series and for my faith to be restored.

Bernie has postured before whilst in negotiations in order to push deals and strengthen his position and has, so far, not let the British GP slip off the calendar. However, he’s also shown that he’s not shy of following up on his word should he not be seeing what he believes to be proportional response to his demands. Although, he would never call them his demands, they are all Market demands… Mmmm. He took away Spa from us for a few season and he took away the Italians and Germans “spare” Grand Prix. There is a strong possibility he will indeed take away the British GP and break a chain of continuous racing year on year since the start of GP racing.

So here’s how I see it. F1 has heart land following in Europe. There are pockets of fans around the world that foster support and, often-times, fanatical support at that. The reasons that other countries and continents want to be a part of F1 – countries and continents that have no history with, or global interest in, motorsport – is that they see this support and want to bring attention to their part of the world. They know they can have the gaze of the media on their shores for a weekend a year and this is clearly valuable from a tourism and business stand-point. However, it’s the huge body of fans that give the sport it’s value. Without people watching, there’s no coverage and without coverage there are no business benefits.

Bernie’s outward position on where, when and how countries host an F1 GP is purely financial. Why should Silverstone get a GP at a knock down rate when other countries are paying top dollar? In purely financial terms, this has grown the sport of F1, but on any semblance of a sporting or fan focused view, it’s going the wrong way. The new tracks being built are impressive indeed, but they are hopeless for motorsport in general. Most of the new tracks get used once a year. They are too big for any other formula to use and they are in locations around the world that have no motorsport history or infrastructure. Even F1 races this year have seen plenty of tracks with poor attendance, with teams and drivers all agreeing that these events are just boring to be a part of. No matter how good the racing is, or how high the TV viewing figures are, without the fans track-side, the sporting spectacle is gone. A football game being played to an empty stadium is flat and boring – no matter how exciting the game being played.

Silverstone’s been a sell out success for many years. It isn’t like the new circuits being built in far off lands. It’s seen great improvements from a spectators point of view and is a joy to access and use now. It still remains relevant to motorsport of all levels and it has great viewing all round the track. But most importantly, when the F1 circus comes to town, it’s crammed full of enthusiasts and the atmosphere is electric.

However, it’s also full of fans who are tired of being taken for granted. They spend a lot of money to stand trackside and for Bernie and his team to constantly threaten these fans with the loss of their GP, not only do they become tired of it all – they also become disillusioned. Nearly every team on the grid is stationed in Britain. Those that aren’t physically stationed here are often run and manned by a strong contingent of Brits. To class that fact as worthless in decisions on location is insulting. Piss off enough of these faithful and it just won’t be worth the effort any more.

As I say above, if fans stop supporting and visiting these heartland locations around the world, then the sport is worthless. Chasing every single dollar may in fact become far more detrimental to F1 than it thinks.

Time will tell whether the British GP will last another year but for me, its patently clear that F1 does need a British GP more than it thinks. It needs it for its long term survival.

The Lancing College chapel is an incredible building and a landmark on the South coast.  Inside, it’s shear scale makes for fantastic photos. I tried out a little (very subtle) HDR style photography to balance out some of the highlights and shadows and I’m pretty please with the result!

But just snapping around, the D90 coped really well with my poor technique!

Goring-by-sea was really windy and there was an absolute throng of kite-boarders and kite-surfers. It leads to an impressive sight. With the strong sun hanging over the sea, it was hard to capture the colour but I’m happy with the results none-the-less.

This crow was struggling in the wind to keep on his perch. The image is a little overplayed perhaps but I really like the fact this image looks like it as a gray and brooding day – rather than the bright and sunny day it was in reality.

I didn’t even mean to capture this family in the shot (I couldn’t actually see that much into the sun!) but I really like the silhouette effect and making the image b&w meant that I could enhance the contrast even more.

It’s a big investment – especially into an area that I haven’t really shown a great deal of direction previously. Indeed, up till now, my photo taking prowess has never really stumbled beyond the diabolical iPhone 3G piece of pap.

But the fact that I kept coming back to this buying decision and the fact that I’ve been pretty gutted at not having a decent camera on many occasions has seen me bite the bullet and see where it may lead.

I don’t know why, but I THINK I have the aptitude to at least take a good snap – if not necessarily the creative talent to spot all the best photos. However, being digital and having two large SD cards to hand means that I have many thousands of opportunities to catch a fluke. Sit a monkey at a typewriter and eventually you’ll get a word out of it – perhaps even a short sentence on rare occasions…

So why the Nikon D90? Well, I did a fair amount of research a while back and the D90 was receiving good reviews. It appeared to offer a good balance between offering good pick up and play settings as well as more advanced features available on the higher end models. It takes a good picture and Nikon seemed to have a good reputation for optics and build quality. I did a quick catch up to check there were no horror stories since my last look and to just check nothing had been released very recently that was going to sway my decision. There were a few Canon models that did add to the haze but ultimately I was satisfied that I wouldn’t go wrong with the D90.

And so its proved. It’s a wonderful piece of kit. Feels sturdy. Works out the box. Has what I perceive to be a usefully versatile kit lens supplied and I’ve been happily snapping random bits of furniture, garden and scenery over the past few days.

I’ve also been hastily consuming huge amounts of information about general photography skills as well as specifics about the D90. I’m very hungry to learn the technical side of things and have been pleasantly surprised about the sheer volume of information out on the internet and beyond. I did buy the “Nikon D90 for Dummies” book – which seemed like a good entry point for advice about photography, the D90 and DSLR’s as a whole. I’m not far off finishing it. I’ve also found 2 iPhone apps offering field guides and advice from the Pro’s. There is, of course, conflicting advice on equipment and settings when you get beyond the basics but as they all say, that’s because everyone has a different aim for their photography and working out what works best for you is part of the fun.

One thing I have worked out very quickly is just how much of a money pit photography is. I had to hold my breath when pressing the buy button online – but now I’m having to brace for impact on all the paraphernalia that comes with wanting to explore further. Also, now is not really a good time to be buying. Bad exchange rates have seen all equipment go up in price – the basic camera that I bought came in over £100 more expensive than when I first started looking. I’ve heard this is the same for the lenses as well.

My wish list currently extends to a monopod, a tripop, a spare battery, a remote control, a 35mm fixed lens, a 75 – 300 zoom lens and perhaps even a beginners photography course. Together, that’s well over £1k of wish list and that’s just the start. I imagine it’s easy to go nuts and blow plenty more than that once you really start looking at specialist situations.

I have already taken my camera out on a trip to Silverstone for the Britcar 500. It was quite a challenge – a six hour race from daylight to night time, with no tripod to help out. Still, I enjoyed myself and caught some snaps.

If you happen to be interested, the whole set is on my Flickr site.

And so, onwards. Who knows where this will go. I’m happy that it won’t be a 5 minute wonder though and that money spent will not be wasted. I’m sure, given the right treatment and with a fair wind, this camera will see me plenty of use and enjoyment. And who knows, perhaps the rare piece of art along the way.

Error “Licensing for this product has stopped working”

What? Why? This did piss me off, of course, but this turned into a huge sage that has taken all day to fix and I’m seriously pissed now. Although slightly relieved that it appears to be solved.

Digging around the net showed this problem to be far from unique to me. Plenty of similar horror stories out there. My whole business relies on these productivity apps and so a whole day out trying to solve crappy problems like this cost more than my sanity.

The knowledge base for this issue is at: http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/401/kb401528.html

I tried the download program offered and stepped through the process. Reboots, retries etc. Didn’t solve the problem.

Tried uninstalling the whole suite but when I tried to re-install the suite, it continually failed. I was ready to rampage at this point! A client meeting later I was back with a clearer mind.

I followed the:

• “Move the cache.db File” step, the
• “Move the Trusted Storage File” and the
• “Rename the FLEXnet Folder”

and then was able to re-install the suite again.

Entered my serial number (and the upgrade products serial number), re-activated  the product and now I appear to be up and running again.

The really grating point of this whole situation is that I’ve spent a lot of money buying productivity software for my business. Adobe make the decision to put in place some shady licencing software that is clearly unreliable and prone to breaking. Not only that, it locks you out with no ability to access settings, re-enter serial numbers, re activate the products etc. Just stone cold locked out of all the apps. Sure, the idea is obviously to lock out pirates from the software but the point is, the only people to suffer at the hands of this ill conceived piece of crap system is genuine owners. Pirate versions simply strip out these systems. A pirate can therefore have a more reliable version of the software than the genuine article.

Great.

Same thing with movies and music. If you’ve spent the money to buy genuine copies of movies and then want to access them digitally – you can’t. Piracy protection is put in place to make this as difficult as possible. Therefore, the only people who can easilly stream their movies over their networks or watch digital versions on multiple delivery devices are the pirates that have downloaded a stripped out versoin.

Glad it’s the weekend now. Hopefully I will have enough time to chill and be ready for Monday!

A shot on target was blocked by the arm of a Bolton defender. The defender, who could have been in no doubt that the ball hit his arm, protested to the effect that the ball hit his head. It didn’t. The result of the rebound off the defenders arm lead to a goal at the opposite end.

The referee saw video evidence of the incident and so disallowed the goal and awarded a penalty to Tranmere – to correct decision based on the events.

Instead of going 4-2 ahead, Bolton therefore found themselves at 3-3. Tranmere then went on to score a late goal to win 4-3.

Post whistle the Bolton players surrounded the referee protesting his use of video evidence to come to the correct decision. Sure, there are questions about the fact that video evidence was used when I don’t believe it was officially within the rules of the event but my larger point here is that the Bolton player knew well and good that he had committed a foul and that foul should lead to a penalty. He knew it enough to lie to the referee. And the same player then thinks it perfectly within his rights to bemoan the referee reaching the correct decision and feeling positively hard done-by into the bargain.

The cheaters feelt hard done by… well good. And more of the same please. Cheaters shouldn’t prosper.